


January

by QueenElizabeth



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-26
Updated: 2016-05-16
Packaged: 2018-05-16 11:17:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5826484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenElizabeth/pseuds/QueenElizabeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For O. </p><p>May the best day of your past be the worst day of your future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

They fell in love in a January.

After the hustle and bustle of Christmas; after the last gilded decoration had been plucked down and boxed up. After the evanescent thrill of New Year’s Eve; after the last bits of confetti had been swept away.

The most depressing month, people always said. Too cold and too bleak. Blue Monday and all that. But it was secret time just for them. Time when no one else was looking. Stolen time just for them, time without the obligations and expectations of a December. A fresh start and a quieted envelope of fog encasing their little world. Icy diamonds bursting under their booted footsteps. Glitter over everything, less obvious than the man-made holiday trimmings which it had replaced, but so worth the effort for those who took time enough to see it.

It was the time for hot black coffees and strong cups of tea which sent whirls of steam dancing into the chilly air above. The time for sidelong glances that lasted a beat too long. The time for bitten lips and silent wishes, thick jumpers and thick specs and cold hands and warm hearts.

Actually, none of that is true. They fell in love about a thousand times before and after, but they gave it a name in a January.


	2. Chapter 2

He was good for her. Of that she was certain. He could reach inside to places in her heart which hadn’t been touched for a thousand years. He could smooth over parts of her soul that were peeling from neglect like an ugly linoleum floor. He could touch every part of her in ways that shook her to her core, and he could do it using only his voice.

Hours upon hours upon hours they talked, sacrificing sleep and sanity, sharing stories and fears and hopes and scars, finding little pieces of themselves in each other.

He didn’t care what time it was. It was always some awful hour in his part of the world, when she had the freedom to call him. It didn’t matter anyway. The sun was only up for a handful of hours in the winter, and even then, it never made its presence felt. She was good for him. She was everything he’d always known he could have if he promised not to settle for less. She ticked every one of his boxes, and there was absolutely no going back to lonely pints with girls who had nothing to say.

There were just so many fucking miles between them. The world was at once so large and so small, and it hurt.

That seemed to be the way that years began, in mourning. The January before was nothing short of a nightmare which took every one of the other months in the year to wake up from. They had that in common, too. They needed each other, and they found each other, precisely when they were meant to.

And so they couldn’t stay apart for very long. Why bother, she thought. She would have wandered anywhere at all to be with him, even for a few hours, just to wrap herself in his arms.

And so it was, that the quiet little love story which began on a cold and hopeless January day caught fire.


	3. Chapter 3

They were so close. So much closer. They were never close enough.

She was his proof that selfless deeds would come with delicious reward. She was his purpose, someone to do for. Someone who appreciated it. He held her as in shelter from storms unseen. He kissed her tears and he kissed her scars. He kissed every freckle on her body.

He was her place of stillness, her place of peace. She visited him again in exquisite flashes of memory. Of taste. Of color. The warmth of his skin, the sounds he made that would bleed and blend with her own when they made love. She gave herself over to him, and her spirit set alight.

Hours upon hours upon hours they talked. Distance would never change a thing on that front. Every whisper in the dark, every truth. Every heartbeat, with their fingers entwined, with his sweat on her chest, with her name breathlessly on his lips. Every promise, a precious gift.

She wanted to show him every single thing that she loved that existed. She wanted to give him fine art and fine wine and to give him memories and adventures and children. She gave him her heart, and she gave him the world.

He wanted most to free her from herself. He knew the truth: that she wasn’t hardened; she was impossibly tender, weary of life in her protective shell. He made her laugh and he made her tea. He made her art and he made her come apart again and again. He made her feel real.

She went home to a different life, viewed through the prism of their union. She began to notice so much more love. The way it flowed from her and through her; the evidence of the existence of it in every stranger she passed. Always of love, and of hope. She was overwhelmed by the ecstasy of humanity. She walked in it proudly, clothed in her happy secret.


	4. Chapter 4

They fell in love in a January.

That was what they had so liked to say. Things got tangled and things got crossed; wishes stayed wishes and meanings were lost. They had fallen in love in a January, all of that is true. What they’d fallen in love with, exactly, was the rub.

At their best, he wanted adventure and he wanted hope, and she wanted romance and she wanted magic, but at their worst he just wanted a way out of town and she simply wanted to delay feeling utterly alone as long as she possibly could.

She was fearless and she was reckless. Loving him opened her heart as surely as it shut her eyes. She saw exactly what she wanted to see and little else at all. He was faithful and he was unbending. Loving her proved to him that those certain places inside him still existed, still functioned. He gave her everything he had to give, by his own rules.

They couldn’t maintain something so staid, yet somehow so urgent, forever. The energy required was impossible and it would have consumed them both. The last thing he needed was to skip twenty years ahead on his road, on a winding and amazing journey only he and time could take. The last thing she needed was another person taking nourishment from her soul, regardless of his good intentions. 

What set off for the heavens on the tail of a bottle rocket fulfilled its destiny exactly, intoxicatingly, burning hot, burning fast, sacrificing itself to give light to a dark and icy winter world. It would exist for one dizzying, beautiful moment. As its glowing embers rained down, all he had left was hope, and the promise that he would make his own adventures. As its core cooled and faded away, she found herself ready for the kind of generosity and romance she had never before considered, where she would receive her magic after all.   


End file.
